RE: Word editing question

["Van Boening, Tammy" <Tammy -dot- VanBoening -at- Fiserv -dot- com>]

Everybody and I mean everybody who responded (too many generous folks to
name individually)!
 
Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing all of your knowledge, your
wisdom and offering your empathy and sympathy! I was laughing so hard at
some replies, I almost started crying. Seems like in one way or another,
all of us have "been there, done that" with Word in our lives - even the
Word gurus and guruesses. I actually will be combing several of the
responses in to my first attempt to tame this god-awful document -
namely, save a master document, provide individual copies with the
reviewer's initials tagged onto the filename so that they can go ahead
and try to make their version look pretty until the cows come home, and
using an open source editor to strip the junk that is sent to me before
I copy and paste it into the Master document.
 
That should save my sanity somewhat - if I have any left at the end of
this project.
 
Thanks to one and all again. The techwriter community is just one plain
COOL bunch of folks.
 
TVB
 
 
 

Tammy L. Van Boening 
Senior Technical Writer 
Fiserv Insurance Solutions 
Property and Casualty Division 
303-729-7733 
tammy -dot- vanboening -at- fiserv -dot- com 
*********************************************************************** 
Keep smiling, at least until you get your own way. 

 

________________________________

From: Pro TechWriter [mailto:pro -dot- techwriter -at- gmail -dot- com] 
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 7:25 AM
To: Van Boening, Tammy
Cc: stclwrsig-l -at- mailman -dot- stc -dot- org; TECHWR-L -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com;
techcomm-discuss -at- stcrmc -dot- org
Subject: Re: Word editing question


To add to what others have said....
 
In my current position, I function mainly as an editor, with
non-technical authors writing their own material. 
 
I have tried many of the suggestions given here: 
 - protecting the document. I got so many complaints and e-mails that I
had to quit that.
-  asked authors not to do formatting. A lot of them do it anyway to
"make it look nice." 
- keep a master document and apply changes there. BINGO. This works. 
 
Document copies go to each author or reviewer with "distribution_copy"
and their initials appended to the document name. They can make changes
with "track changes" turned on in the document (about 1/3 refuse to do
that), by handwritten notes, or just straight on in the document. 
 
When the changes come back, I do a document compare (and deselect
"formatting"), print the document, and then make the changes in my
master, usually by typing them. I still have to edit the author's
changes. I *always* check off the changes on my compare copy, so I can
show that the change was incorporated, even if I changed the language
somewhat. 
 
There's no more fixing butchered styles, or inline formatting, or other
weirdness that can happen with Word when a whole bunch of different
templates are applied. And, those who want to put all those spaces in to
make the words line up can format to their heart's content. It's a
non-issue for me now. 
 
This is pretty flexible because each author can give me changes pretty
much how they are most comfortable. It's also reduced my stress, and
increased my productivity. 
 
Good luck :-) 
PT
 


 
On 5/2/07, Van Boening, Tammy <Tammy -dot- VanBoening -at- fiserv -dot- com> wrote: 

	Forgiveness is begged from the Word gurus and guru-esses on this
list.
	I am a Framemaker fanatic, but have had to work in the throes of
Word 
	hell on a particular project. Basically, it was a round robin
document
	that got started by one person who hacked merrily away and added
their
	content, then passed it on to another person who hacked merrily
away and 
	added their content, and well, you get the picture. This little
	merry-go-round ensued among 6 of my SMEs. I was then handed back
this
	monstrosity of a Word document and expected to "work my magic."
	
	Tammy L. Van Boening
	Senior Technical Writer
	Fiserv Insurance Solutions
	Property and Casualty Division
	303-729-7733
	tammy -dot- vanboening -at- fiserv -dot- com
	
*********************************************************************** 
	Keep smiling, at least until you get your own way.
	
	^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	
	PT
	pro -dot- techwriter -at- gmail -dot- com
	I'm a Technical Technical Writer! 

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